The Google Now feature set is tough to summarize. It builds on the voice actions system that Google offered in previous versions of Android, adding support for natural language queries, but it also has a passive mode in which it will display contextually relevant information through Android’s notification system. Between the two approaches, Google Now can do all sorts of things.

It knows the important stuff.

The voice control interface in Google Now operates much like Apple’s Siri; the software records and interprets the user’s voice, parsing full sentences of natural speech into commands. It responds by speaking back to the user and displaying relevant information. You can use the speech interface to dictate an e-mail or text message, search Google, perform a calculation or unit conversion, get the definition of a word, get a stock quote, search the platform’s built-in addressbook, set an alarm, play a song, get travel directions, get the current weather conditions in a region, or launch an application. The range of supported commands and queries is comparable to Siri's.

The passive information mode uses a wide array of data—including the user’s location, schedule, and search queries—in order to provide useful information on a preemptive basis. When the user has a meeting, for example, Google Now will helpfully offer directions to the location and an estimation of how long it will take to arrive there in current traffic conditions.

Sounds useful—but how well does it work? We tested Google Now in Android 4.1 on a Nexus 7 tablet and on a Galaxy Nexus smartphone. We tested a wide range of queries and searches, then spent some time comparing Google Now to Siri to see how it stacks up against Apple’s implementation.

Using Google Now

Instead of building Google Now as a separate utility, Google conveniently integrated it into Android’s existing global search tool, a feature that allows users to perform Google Web searches and search the local contents of their devices. The global search feature is activated by tapping the search box on the Android home screen. In Android 4.1, you can reach it from anywhere in the platform by swiping upward from the home button in the Android navigation bar; it’s also accessible from the default lock screen—just drag the slider to the top of the unlock circle instead of to the right edge.

Getting Google's share price from Google Now.

When the user enters a query, the software will determine whether to perform a conventional Google search or process the query with Google Now. When the latter occurs, the user sees a “card” that displays a specially formatted response consisting of text and graphical elements. When the user asks for a stock quote, for example, the software will display the latest closing price and show a graph. (The card can be moved out of the way by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to display conventional search results instead.)

Unlike Siri, Google Now offers the option of typing queries (Siri is voice only). Any natural language phrase that Google Now is capable of interpreting can be asked verbally or typed into the text box. When the user starts typing, search autocompletion suggestions and regular global device search results will appear in real time. To speak instead of type, just tap the microphone icon. The behavior of the software is largely the same between voice and text queries. The only real difference is that voice queries produce a verbal response from the phone—where applicable, Google Now will read its answer aloud.

Support for typing your commands can be useful in some cases. Consider, for example, how easy it is to send an e-mail from Google Now without having to go into the e-mail application. You swipe upwards at the lock screen and then type “email Bob I’m going to be late” into the search box. Google Now will display a card with the message and the recipient—all you have to do is hit the send button. You could just as easily use the same feature with voice, but it’s convenient to type in the many cases where you don’t want to say the message out loud.

Another Google Now feature that’s handy to use with keyboard input is the stock lookup. I find it more convenient to just type in the three or four letter ticker symbol rather than saying a phrase like “Google’s stock price.”

It is a great feature, but it seems sort of random when it displays a card and when it just gives you search results. For example, "What is the genus of a housecat?" and several other queries that worked here just returned search results on mine. It still works great the majority of the time though, and often times the search results are just as good (though not as cool of a party trick).

The passive features are my favorite though. It knows when I want to go to work, home, and places I've recently searched for. Very intuitive and it's nice to see exactly how long your next trip will take you (including traffic) in your phones notification bar without even thinking about it.

Google Now is the feature where informational cards pop up in your notification bar at certain times and places where they are relevant. For example, you'll get a weather report once in a while that is apropos for your location. You'll get a train schedule when you are near a train station. You'll get directions and a traffic report for travel to your work location as you are ready to leave for work.

Google Search has also made improvements and they look great as your review has shown.

It sounds like to be able to use the voice search (which apparently isn't Google Now according to a previous commenter), it still takes a few steps at any point, including swiping around on the screen. One of the things I love about Siri is how easy it is to access at anytime, even without looking at your device (just hold the Home button until you hear that instantly recognizable beep... or press and hold the center button on the inline remote on the headphones that come with all iPhones).

I might have missed it in the article, but does this thing actually read back any responses to you? Siri will respond to you with voice in most cases (anytime you're wanting it to take an action, such as sending a message, making a reminder, etc), which is certainly a nice feature to go along with how easy it is to bring up. Google's old voice search never would actually speak responses, so not sure if they finally added that.

Personally, I've found issuing commands to take some action (call, send a message, set an alarm, set a reminder, save a note) to be what I predominately use Siri for. Occasionally I'll ask it a question, but that's far from my main usage.

It sounds like to be able to use the voice search (which apparently isn't Google Now according to a previous commenter), it still takes a few steps at any point, including swiping around on the screen. One of the things I love about Siri is how easy it is to access at anytime, even without looking at your device (just hold the Home button until you hear that instantly recognizable beep... or press and hold the center button on the inline remote on the headphones that come with all iPhones).

I might have missed it in the article, but does this thing actually read back any responses to you? Siri will respond to you with voice in most cases (anytime you're wanting it to take an action, such as sending a message, making a reminder, etc), which is certainly a nice feature to go along with how easy it is to bring up. Google's old voice search never would actually speak responses, so not sure if they finally added that.

Google now/voice search is as easy as work to bring up. All you Do is swipe up from the home button. The swiping it from the lock screen is just another way to get to it. And it does physically read things back to you.

This article lost me at “4.1”... just how many Android users will the carriers’ and phone manufacturers’ policy of selling current handsets with years-old operating systems with no “official” upgrade path that alienates the user base from “modern” services?

Regardless of my feelings towards Apple (written on my iPad), no other handset manufacturer or mobile OS company has achieved an ecosystem where the total experience of their modern OS has been available to so many end users.

To be fair, much of the technology behind this advanced search system (including natural language voice recognition) is ALREADY available to any Android device with voice search, not just Jelly Bean devices. Reading the answer back and presenting you with Google Now notifications is really the only stuff specific to Jelly Bean (4.1). I ran through the series of questions by just long-pressing the search button on my Gingerbread-equiped Nexus One and got a mix of both specific answers (like "John Milton") and search results that led to the answers. Only 5 questions could not be properly understood.

One thing I really like about the Voice Search/Google Now on JB is that the new TTS engine is very natural sounding and actually quite pleasant to listen to. I actually switched all my preferences from British English to US English just so it would be used system wide.

Something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that Google Now will respond to searches performed using Chrome on the desktop (assuming you are logged in to your Google account). I can search for a restaurant menu on my desktop and when I pick up my phone Google Now will offer to navigate there, I didn't even make an appointment or anything.

This article lost me at “4.1”... just how many Android users will the carriers’ and phone manufacturers’ policy of selling current handsets with years-old operating systems with no “official” upgrade path that alienates the user base from “modern” services?

Regardless of my feelings towards Apple (written on my iPad), no other handset manufacturer or mobile OS company has achieved an ecosystem where the total experience of their modern OS has been available to so many end users.

Perhaps the best way to state it: live in your own ecosystem.

Oh please. Spare me. Siri used to be an application for all Apple handsets. When Apple took it on, it is only for iPhone 4s.

This article lost me at “4.1”... just how many Android users will the carriers’ and phone manufacturers’ policy of selling current handsets with years-old operating systems with no “official” upgrade path that alienates the user base from “modern” services?

Regardless of my feelings towards Apple (written on my iPad), no other handset manufacturer or mobile OS company has achieved an ecosystem where the total experience of their modern OS has been available to so many end users.

Perhaps the best way to state it: live in your own ecosystem.

Oh please. Spare me. Siri used to be an application for all Apple handsets. When Apple took it on, it is only for iPhone 4s.

google voice search (android search) is a different product from google voice (phone numbers) which is different from google talk (xmpp chat). say what you want about apple but at least the products are named to not be confusing.

You swipe upwards at the lock screen and then type “email Bob I’m going to be late” into the search box.

Only if you don't use a PIN. I dunno about other security methods (password, etc).

And to be fair, I'm glad. I can't help but think there would security issues otherwise. If nothing else, Congress would probably mandate that the phrase "This is the police, open up" override security.

Quote:

One key difference between the two implementations is that Siri allows the user to confirm the send prompt with a spoken command while Google Now does not.

This article lost me at “4.1”... just how many Android users will the carriers’ and phone manufacturers’ policy of selling current handsets with years-old operating systems with no “official” upgrade path that alienates the user base from “modern” services?

Regardless of my feelings towards Apple (written on my iPad), no other handset manufacturer or mobile OS company has achieved an ecosystem where the total experience of their modern OS has been available to so many end users.

Perhaps the best way to state it: live in your own ecosystem.

As long as you have the money to keep replacing the hardware everytime new handset comes out.

I think Google is in a much better position here than Apple. The data Google sits on and the data you give it --add some sense, ears and a voice to it and you could start talking to some pretty impressive AI sooner or later.

Google now/voice search is as easy as work to bring up. All you Do is swipe up from the home button. The swiping it from the lock screen is just another way to get to it. And it does physically read things back to you.

Do any of the Android phones have physical buttons anymore? Hell, do any of them even have a little ridge between the buttons so you can know which one your finger is on without having to guestimate distance? That was something I always hated with my Galaxy S's soft buttons (in addition to how they'd occasionally go crazy and act as if they were being rapidly pressed).

one kind of cool thing that you didn't mention in your review, Ryan (or I missed it), is that if you swipe up to view the google now cards, you can initiate a voice search/command by saying "google". It appears to recognize the word locally and then starts listening for normal, "cloud" based speech recognition -- basically how in Star Trek you say "computer" to indicate you want to talk to the computer.

It actually says in the search box in Google Now that you can do it: "Search, or say Google", but like "Speak, friend, and enter", it took a friend pointing out the odd phrasing before I realized what it was saying I could do.

I'd like that to be system wide, maybe whenever the screen is on, though that could get problematic with people talking around you, and you'd definitely have to make it opt in, as I'm sure having the phone always listening to you (even if doing speech recognition locally) would not be cool for many.

It sounds like to be able to use the voice search (which apparently isn't Google Now according to a previous commenter), it still takes a few steps at any point, including swiping around on the screen. One of the things I love about Siri is how easy it is to access at anytime, even without looking at your device (just hold the Home button until you hear that instantly recognizable beep... or press and hold the center button on the inline remote on the headphones that come with all iPhones).

You can still access it pretty easily. Just swipe up from the bottom of the screen at any time, and it activates. The voice part won't activate automatically (I prefer it this way, but I could see it being an option in the future), though you can still activate it without turning it on; just speak "google" and it will activate the voice input.

It's true I don't use it for questions all that much, but the inline search is often exactly what I want, and when I do have questions (such as distance between two points) it's been pretty reliable.

My wife and I sit on opposite sides of the smartphone ecosystem. She has a Nexus S, I have an iPhone 4. I paid $1000, she got hers free on a $19 plan - both about 18 months ago. Hers has voice capability, mine doesn't (thanks Apple). Not sure how important voice command feature is at this stage though...Yesterday a group of us had an informal showdown in a crowded, noisy cafe, with people everywhere, tiled floors, music playing... We all agreed (although some of us red-faced) that Google beat the pants off Siri - it wasn't a competition, it was a slaughter. Google's accuracy was about 90% - Siri's was about 30% (don't forget, it was very noisy - I was amazed the phones understood anything). We swapped phones to avoid "accent and tone bias" - and the results were almost identical.In terms of capability, Google is newer, so I expect it to be slightly better. However, Google have made this feature useful (not so gimmicky).. IMHO, the only thing that was actually "practical" about the capability was when I said "Nearest KFC" to my wife's phone (couldn't get this to work on a friend's iPhone 4s) - and it showed me the quickest route to the nearest KFC franchise. This was more convenient than typing the same thing into Google Maps.I'm disappointed that I've paid a premium for an Apple product, and yet my wife's Android phone gets more capability and less headaches than my iPhone. The iPhone "just works" is a good marketing slogan, but not "quite" the truth. In truth, maybe i'm more annoyed that my wife's phone came up trumps against mine

Google now/voice search is as easy as work to bring up. All you Do is swipe up from the home button. The swiping it from the lock screen is just another way to get to it. And it does physically read things back to you.

Do any of the Android phones have physical buttons anymore? Hell, do any of them even have a little ridge between the buttons so you can know which one your finger is on without having to guestimate distance? That was something I always hated with my Galaxy S's soft buttons (in addition to how they'd occasionally go crazy and act as if they were being rapidly pressed).

You push the search button in android ones that have buttons (physical or capacitive) if they don't have a search button? You have to open the Google app fr, the homes screen.

EDIT and I realize I didn't even answer your question. Samsung HTC and lg are the only oems who still Use buttons. No new moto phones do nor do the nexus devices.

I have to agree with KitsuneKnight: Voice would be vastly more convenient with a dedicated button. Two steps that require eye attention and finger precision (plus initially turning on the screen) is seriously unwieldy if you just have a quick question on the go. It discourages casual usage, and completely swallows Google Now's answering-speed edge over Siri.

IMHO, the only thing that was actually "practical" about the capability was when I said "Nearest KFC" to my wife's phone (couldn't get this to work on a friend's iPhone 4s) - and it showed me the quickest route to the nearest KFC franchise. This was more convenient than typing the same thing into Google Maps.

You can say "Nearest KFC" (or any other restaurant) into google's voice system too, it uses Google Local to interface with Maps automatically. I used this functionality quite a bit when I was in Portland this summer.

I find voice commands in general to be only useful in certain cases, but in those cases it's extremely useful. For example, I was looking up apartments in a neighboring city, and I needed to know how close each one was to the university. Finding the distance (and route) was as easy as saying "distance between ADDRESS and university in CITY", which was *much* easier and faster than trying to type that query into Google repeatedly.

I'm disappointed that I've paid a premium for an Apple product, and yet my wife's Android phone gets more capability and less headaches than my iPhone. The iPhone "just works" is a good marketing slogan, but not "quite" the truth. In truth, maybe i'm more annoyed that my wife's phone came up trumps against mine

It's nice to see this thread sound a lot more rational and pro-tech rather than pro-either-side than most.

I'm a long-time iOS user who recently bought a Nexus S. It turns out I rarely use voice anything... I prefer the privacy of typing. For that, I think Android's keyboard is far better than iOS's. On the other hand, the Nexus S seems quite slow and choppy compared to the iPhone4, which I think has equivalent specs. The iPhone "just works", and it just works a lot more smoothly than the Nexus S even with Jelly Bean's performance improvements. So it's not all roses on this side.

I prefer Siri's way of doing reminders, but I'm really liking Google Now's travel time information.

one kind of cool thing that you didn't mention in your review, Ryan (or I missed it), is that if you swipe up to view the google now cards, you can initiate a voice search/command by saying "google". It appears to recognize the word locally and then starts listening for normal, "cloud" based speech recognition -- basically how in Star Trek you say "computer" to indicate you want to talk to the computer.

It actually says in the search box in Google Now that you can do it: "Search, or say Google", but like "Speak, friend, and enter", it took a friend pointing out the odd phrasing before I realized what it was saying I could do.

I'd like that to be system wide, maybe whenever the screen is on, though that could get problematic with people talking around you, and you'd definitely have to make it opt in, as I'm sure having the phone always listening to you (even if doing speech recognition locally) would not be cool for many.

You'd need to have some dedicated hardware for that part. Give your device a name, it copies the necessary software and data tables to recognize just that name to a dedicated low-power subsystem and that system listens and waits for the name. As soon as it hears it, it wakes up the phone which handles the actual interaction. This would need some serious hardware development, but it can't be *that* hard to develop a chip that recognizes just one very specific word and nothing else.

Google Now (the passive card system) would be a lot cooler if they didn't insist on it being all automagic, and actually gave you a few knobs to turn. For example: my wife is a huge White Sox fan, constantly searching to White Sox scores, news, apps, and whatnot, yet after a month of owning her Nexus 7 she cannot get it to give her a Sports card. The prefs screen only allows you to remove teams, apparently.

As long as you have the money to keep replacing the hardware everytime new handset comes out.

How do you tell the average person who just bought/upgraded to a brand new Android phone on a two-year contract that the OS is several revisions old and to use those neat new services they will have to upgrade the software? I sure don't want to be their personal computer repairman, having them call every time they can't find an app (I'm taking time out of my day to fix your *^%#^*% game!?!).

Both the carriers and the manufacturers (Apple included) only care about keeping the masses happy with the perceptionof a low-cost device, subsidized on contract. and the carriers make no money when you don't have the money to replace the handset every two years.

This article lost me at “4.1”... just how many Android users will the carriers’ and phone manufacturers’ policy of selling current handsets with years-old operating systems with no “official” upgrade path that alienates the user base from “modern” services?

Regardless of my feelings towards Apple (written on my iPad), no other handset manufacturer or mobile OS company has achieved an ecosystem where the total experience of their modern OS has been available to so many end users.

Perhaps the best way to state it: live in your own ecosystem.

So you can use Siri on your (anything but iPhone 4S)? No? So the "total experience of their modern OS (is) available to so many end users" as long as they have the latest piece of hardware?

Google Now (the passive card system) would be a lot cooler if they didn't insist on it being all automagic, and actually gave you a few knobs to turn. For example: my wife is a huge White Sox fan, constantly searching to White Sox scores, news, apps, and whatnot, yet after a month of owning her Nexus 7 she cannot get it to give her a Sports card. The prefs screen only allows you to remove teams, apparently.

If your search history is disabled, you won't get the card. I was experiencing this same issue on my Galaxy Nexus and my Nexus 7. I went into my Google Account settings and saw that I had stopped my search history. I enabled search history, and suddenly the card for my favorite sports team came up.

Note that I live about 1000 miles away from my favorite baseball team, so the card which came up is most certainly due to enabling my search history and not another factor like location.